Anew
by Kgirl1
Summary: A "Kanera baby but Kanan dies in an explosion that stops production of the TIE factory" fic that was somehow written before the series finale. Now with chapter two, in which Kanan and Hera have a big decision to make, and chapter three, in which that decision's been made, and Hera's alone in it.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I've had this written for a while and decided that I'd better post it before Rebels changes the plot too dramatically on me. (Thoughts on that mid-series finale? I don't think I'll make it to 2018, guys). Read on!**

It's Zeb, who ends up in the hospital room with her—Zeb, who sweeps her up in his arms the moment her water breaks, Zeb, who barrels down the halls of Yavin's base, snarling at anybody who stands in his way and then switching instantly to a reassuring murmur when he speaks to her. Zeb, who offers to hold her hand even though she's clearly the one crushing his to the point of bruising.

She hadn't planned for it to be Zeb; she hadn't planned for it to be anybody. She was going to do it alone, no fuss, no alerts, no need to bother anyone or interrupt the rebellion.

But when her water breaks, it's like her very heart drops to the floor with it, and all of her courage, all of her bluster, everything that she's read and learned and prepared for in those nine months falls right out of her, and she's never been more scared in her entire life.

Not when she was hiding in tunnels during the Clone War.

Not when Kanan was taken by the Inquisitor.

Not when they faced Thrawn.

And Zeb—Force bless Zeb, who seems to look into her eyes and just _know—_ Zeb was there.

And now, as she finds herself with her legs in straps and her forehead plastered in sweat and her entire torso in a knot of agony, Zeb is here.

And she'll never admit it, but she's grateful.

* * *

They weren't planning on having a baby.

Does anyone really _plan_ on having a baby, she wonders? Sure, there are stories about it, women who are ready to try anything to get pregnant, and advertisements on the holo late at night, but when she stares at the med-droid telling her the test is positive, she can't imagine that anyone would ever, _ever,_ _plan_ to feel the way she does right now, like she's in freefall and the only thing rushing up to save her is hard, rocky ground.

Kanan squeezes her hand, and it's like she's already hit the rocks. She doesn't know if he's prompting her to say something, or just alerting her of the fact that she's sitting there catatonic, but she does know this:

He's happy. No, happy doesn't cover it. She can feel the joy bursting from him like it's a tangible thing, shooting from his chest in ribbons and wrapping around her like a straightjacket.

Her mouth wobbles open, and the words she chooses to say to the droid are, Force knows why, "Thank you."

The droid quirks its little head and then nods, backing out. Kanan turns his head to meet Hera's eyes for the first time since they entered the room, and there's a boundless joy in his face that nearly breaks her heart.

It's like he can see again.

And she knows right then. She'll struggle with it, sure; she'll lie to herself, vacillate. The rebellion, the war, the _Ghost…_ she'll come up with a million reasons why they shouldn't have this baby. And she'll tell them to him, every last one.

He'll humor her, when she does this; make it clear that it's her decision, her body, her womb. He'll tell her that she is all he'll ever need, that she already makes him feel complete.

But she'll keep it.

She knows from the moment she sees his face that she'll keep it.

* * *

She's terrified to hold the baby when it comes. She lets the doctors whisk it away while she lies there frozen, her legs still spread as if her body can't believe it's really out.

 _He,_ she hears the doctor murmur something about a male, and corrects her thinking. Hera can't believe _he's_ really out.

They'd both been nervous, though they hadn't spoken about it, except in shallow quips that belied their underlying concern (which, in hindsight, was how most of their communication functioned anyway). Hera had read about mixed-species children, knew they existed all over the galaxy, but also knew that it was much more likely for things to go wrong. There were the cosmetic issues—would the child have lekku? Hair? Ear cones? What would its pigmentation be?

(She'd heard rumors, that one of the squadrons had placed bets on the color of the child, which had made her so furious that she'd nearly grounded them.)

Hera could lie to herself about those—she didn't care what the baby looked like (although she would love to see Kanan's eyes again) or whether or not it had lekku (really, if she was going to be carrying the thing for months, the least it could do was resemble its mother a little bit)—it was when she started to think about physiology that she felt dread creep into her chest.

She realized she didn't care so much about the looks, as long as it was healthy.

As long as her own body didn't fail them both.

* * *

Gestation for twi'leks is, on average, eleven months; for humans, nine.

By the time she's two months in, she's praying it'll only be nine.

* * *

The med-droid holds it—him—out to her, and her eyes go wide with fear. It feels like the droid is holding out so much more than a baby— it's a burden, almost more of a burden than it was when it was inside her, and if she picks it up, she'll carry it forever. She had thought she'd made her choice at the end of that first trimester, but she realizes that it's more of a choice now than it's ever been, that it will be a choice she makes every day for the rest of her life.

She looks to Zeb, who nods gently, urging her forward. Hera swallows down bile and extends her arms to take the bundle from the droid. She can just see the wispy, dark hairs curling over the edge of the blanket it's been swaddled in.

She brings it into her lap with the hesitancy of a bomb surgeon, as if it might explode in her arms any second. She sees its head appear, and then its face. Two little nubs that will one day become lekku. A smile curls on her lips, pushing up the corners of her fatigued eyes. It—he, it's a he now, she must remind herself—is sleeping, and she takes one finger and runs it shakily down her son's cheek.

His eyes pop open, as if he's been waiting the entirety of his fleeting life for her touch, and just like that, her son burrows into the deepest part of her heart, the part she'd give her life in an instant to protect.

They're Kanan's eyes.

And for the first time since his death, Hera starts to cry.

* * *

Knowing her, she probably wouldn't have realized she was pregnant until the bump stopped her from flying the _Ghost._ It's Kanan who wants her to see a med droid, after three weeks during which she's so hungry that she seeks out food for herself (a childhood ravaged by war, in which there was never quite enough food, paired with a stringent sense of focus is the perfect cocktail for constantly forgetting to eat; Hera's diet usually consists of whatever he brings her, whenever). The hunger, and the odd combinations of food with which she chooses to satisfy it, is the first thing that tips him off.

The second is fatigue, which frustrates her because usually she just pushes through it (usually she doesn't feel it at all) but this is _different,_ like the very cells have fallen out of her bones. She brushes off his concern until they're lucky enough to steal a rare, intimate moment, and then the third thing comes, when his touch on her breasts makes her yelp in pain.

He teases her about it later—"Hera would never go to the med-bay for her own health. But to save her sex life?"—but thankfully, only in private.

* * *

She decides right away, before she's even admitted to herself that she's keeping it, that she won't let pregnancy slow her down. There's at least two separate meetings that she attends via comm while a droid is waving an ultrasound wand over her belly. She's walked into several briefings wiping vomit off her chin, and excused herself from just as many for similar reasons. The other rebel leaders have learned not to so much as raise an eyebrow at her, if they don't want her savagely convicted retort that she's _fine, thank you for your concern,_ but she does allow them to put out a chair for her. Her feet are constantly telling her how displeased they are to be carrying the extra weight, but if anything gets in her way, it's the sheer physicality of her growing belly. She learns to circumvent it, to stand a bit further back from the screens, even to balance a datapad on it by the end of her pregnancy.

She flies the _Ghost_ until her swollen stomach won't fit behind the controls (that's when she pulls out a toolkit and tries to move the seat backward, but damn it, she can't fit under there either). Kanan won't do it, since he wanted her to stop flying a long time ago and says that if the galaxy is taking his side, she should too; and Ezra and Zeb won't do it out of respect for (or fear of) him. Hera tells them that a pregnant woman's wrath is far greater than any Jedi's, but when they still refuse, she just grumbles that she wishes Sabine were still here. Finally she manages to convince one of the pilots to move it for her, but even then it costs her a week's worth of chocolate rations, and given the way the cravings have been hitting her, that's not an easy compromise. In the end, she finds out that Kanan's doubled her chocolate offer, so long as the pilot promises _not_ to move the seat, and by then she's so sick of carting her swollen belly around the base that she just gives in to being grounded.

(After she gets her chocolate back. At least pregnant woman's wrath can do that much.)

Mere hours after the birth, she's cradling the infant in one arm and using the other to comm into a meeting. The best, or maybe worst part of it, is that no one is surprised, and no one tries to stop her.

* * *

She wishes her mother were here.

* * *

Sabine comes to see the baby. When she first sees her, she runs up and hugs Hera for a long time.

"How are you, Hera?"

It's a loaded question. There's a sympathy in her eyes, a maturity that shows how much she's grown since she left them. Hera is proud for a moment, but then furious—she is the one who takes care of Sabine. Not the other way around.

* * *

Zeb is the second person to hold her son. Hera finds it fitting, that the first arms to support her in the wake of Kanan's death are the second to support their baby. He cradles the infant with a tender reverence that she's never seen from him before, and looks up to give her a lopsided grin.

"He's beautiful, Hera," Zeb says quietly. His voice is low, like she's a pane of glass and he's afraid striking the wrong note will break her.

"He is, isn't he?" She pins a smile on her face, but it doesn't fit.

* * *

Their eyes meet—someone has to go in. Someone has to save them.

Someone won't come out of this alive.

He holds her in his stare like she's a painting, a work of art that could bring a man to tears. She knows him too well to pretend she doesn't know what his eyes are saying.

Her life is worth more than his now. It's simple utilitarianism, saving two lives over one. It's the cruel logic of war.

It's logic her brain has followed her whole life.

But it's her heart that refuses it.

* * *

Her entire body hurts, an ache that's as physiological as it is psychological. She aches not for painkillers but for his touch, to be held by him, for his whispers that everything's going to be alright. Her stomach, her legs, the space in between… It hurts so badly that she can hardly focus on the sleeping infant in her arms, on what's supposed to be a bundle of joy but really just feels like one more burden for her to carry. Suddenly, her arms are screaming, and she thinks it's as much denial of the weight as it is exhaustion. She passes the baby to Zeb and immediately falls asleep.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Hera," he says. His voice sounds like it's coming from far away. "It has to be me."

"No." She doesn't realize she's spoken it, but when she hears her own voice, she's suddenly desperate, clinging to him. "Kanan, _no!"_

He embraces her one final time, pulls her and their baby against him with everything that he has, and plants a lingering kiss on her forehead, even though they both know they're running out of time.

"I love you," he whispers, and then he jumps.

" _Kanan!"_ His name rips from her throat and leaves it raw.

* * *

The mission had gone wrong. The mission always seemed to go wrong. It was early into her second trimester, after the morning sickness but before anybody had tried to ground her (her favorite period of the pregnancy). It was simple: she and Kanan on a stealth op to strike a blow against Thrawn's TIE factory on Lothal.

"Just like old times," he'd joked as they left. "Kanan and Hera, taking on the galaxy."

She'd smiled at him and tried not to think about the fact that in just months, their relationship would permanently change; that they'd never be able to go back to just Kanan and Hera.

The galaxy had a cruel sense of humor; those months could have been a lifetime, had she known that they only had hours.

* * *

"You know, if you'd been here to design it, that automatic detonator never would have broken," Hera tells Sabine during one of her visits, before the baby comes. She's teasing, trying to make light of a dark situation, but the horrified look on the girl's face makes her regret having said anything at all. Kanan was always better at black comedy than her.

"Oh, Sabine, no, I was kidding, it was only a joke—" Hera rushes to assure her, but tears are already filling those big brown eyes. Her bottom lip trembles, and Sabine falls into Hera's arms, shaking, sobbing.

Her voice is trembling, and Hera knows it comes from the darkest part of Sabine's soul when she chokes out, "I've thought that every single day."

And Hera wishes she could reassure her, but she knows firsthand that this pain runs too deep. So she does what she's always done, what she knows Ursa Wren would never do, and she holds her, and lets her cry.

* * *

When the factory explodes, she's already in the _Ghost,_ hardly able to see the dashboard through the tears in her eyes. But she knows her ship by heart, and she's able to get it off the ground by instinct, hovering in Lothal's sky until she sees the brilliant red light up the night.

She knows she should get out of there, but she can't, not until it's over.

She has to know that she gave him every chance to come back.

* * *

When the light fades, when the noise dies down, when each second is multiplying her risk of detection ten hundredfold and Chopper is screaming like he's gone haywire, she leaves the atmosphere.

The blurred vortex of hyperspace burns her eyes. When they drop out, they're nowhere near Yavin; she parks the Ghost in deep space and cries for hours, until her body can't conjure up any more tears.

* * *

The mission report is the hardest part. She can't stand to debrief anyone because she knows she'll break the moment she's asked about it, and Hera Syndulla certainly can't have that. So she contacts Zeb, and Rex. Not Ezra, not yet; she'll have to be strong for him, and she just can't do that right now.

The men are solemn. They enter the _Ghost,_ receive the news and bring it back to headquarters. Zeb touches her arm; Rex holds her in his sympathetic stare, and it feels like Kanan's arms around her, which makes her nearly lose it all over again. She claims morning sickness and doesn't leave the ship for the next forty-eight hours.

* * *

When she emerges, her stare is hard, and it silences any sympathy her comrades try to raise. She throws herself into her work, heading straight to make the mission report, typing Kanan's name with the same detachment she'd use to log a supply shipment.

She maintains this façade for a few days. She sleeps more than usual, but that's easy to disguise; after all, she is pregnant.

It's Zeb who discovers the charade, or really, Zeb who knew all along. He catches her before she's retiring, early once again, dreading another sleepless night of tears but too tired to hold them back anymore.

"Hera," he says, and his tone of voice tells her he's not asking about something rebellion-related.

She's halfway inside her quarters, and doesn't turn her head. "Yes, Zeb?"

He sighs, looks past her into the cabin, where there are stacked trays of food that he's brought her, all still full.

"Not much of an appetite, huh?" He shifts between his feet. She fights the anger that flickers up in her belly—who does he think he is, and why can't he just leave her alone _?_

"I'm fine, Zeb." She steps fully into her room, but he catches the door before it closes. She whips her head around and throws a glare that would ordinally stop him in his tracks. There's a fear in his eyes, which brings her satisfaction, but then she realizes it's not her he's afraid of.

"The baby—" he starts, but then stops.

She's suddenly defensive, crossing her arms over her chest. "What about the baby?"

Zeb sighs once more, his eyes traveling from her to the trays. She feels his gaze like it's a physical handprint, running from her trembling hands to the weary skin under her eyes. When he finally speaks, his voice is as heavy as his frame.

"You already lost him, Hera."

Her mouth falls open, and the statement spreads through her body like cold water. Suddenly she's icy with fear, and the world seems like it's going black, and then next thing she knows, she's wrapped up in purple fur and she's sobbing.

* * *

Zeb had promised Kanan he would take care of her, he tells her.

It had been a long time ago, sure; there hadn't been a baby, or even an Ezra or a Sabine yet. But there had been the three of them, and there had been danger, and maybe Kanan had known that she was wrapped up in something greater that she couldn't give away just yet.

But he'd promised. Baby or not, Zeb had promised; and now that promise mattered twice as much.

"If you can't eat for you, eat for them," Zeb nods to her stomach, when her tears are dry. She nods her head and wipes her cheeks, taking in a deep, rattling breath. He's watching her with a critical eye.

"Kanan always took care of you, didn't he?"

Hera stares down into her lap, too ashamed to meet his eyes. "Yes."

Zeb's voice is soft, kind. "You're going to have to do that yourself now."

* * *

Zeb's lying—he takes care of her, for a while. Until she learns how to take care of herself again.

The hardest lesson is learning to let herself grieve.

* * *

Ezra loves the baby, absolutely adores him. Hera was worried that it would be too hard for him—that the child would remind him of Kanan, the same way he does her—but Ezra assures her that it's alright.

"His signature in the Force, it's… different." He tried to explain it to her once. "Kanan's there, but so are you. And most of it's all him, or whoever he will be."

This doesn't strike her as a bad thing. Apparently, her son is already making ripples in the Force.

"He's light, Hera." Ezra tells her this with shining eyes. "He's all light."

She's as relieved as she is terrified, that her son could be following the same dangerous path as his father.

* * *

It's weeks later when it happens.

She's just lay Caleb down to sleep, on the wall side of her bunk. In a moment, after she takes off her clothes, stained with grease and spit-up (one of which has been a recent development; the other of which is as familiar to her as the clothes themselves), she'll curl up next to him. She'd promised herself that caring for him would be her first priority, but the rebellion still manages to sneak in here and there. Mon Mothma is always delighted to see the child in briefings, swaddled to her back the same way Hera's mother used to carry her.

He's a happy baby—she expected as much, but she's still relieved—and healthy as can be. Everyone on the base loves him; he's Leia's first priority, on her infrequent visits, and Sabine's, too. He even gets the occasional baby-talk out of Ezra, which delights Hera, as it reminds her of a simpler time, when the teen wasn't trying to balance the entire galaxy on his shoulders.

Zeb's been an absolute godsend. She thanks the Force for him every day, every hour, it seems. Even as she's stripping off her flight suit and slipping into sleep clothes, she's realizing that he's the one who did her laundry (again).

Hera crawls into bed next to her son, who's getting bigger every day. His chest rises and falls with every breath, and it reminds her of how she would wake up in the middle of the night after a rough mission and watch Kanan as he slept, of how reassuring it was just to know that he was there, and alive, and breathing.

She watches for a moment, and thanks the Force for her son, for the miracle that's wrapped up in that tiny body.

"Goodnight, Caleb Jarrus," she whispers. "I love you."

She knows he's asleep, but she isn't really speaking for him, more for herself—to remind her of the Jarrus that shared this same space, just weeks ago. She closes her eyes and settles in, and she's just drifting off to sleep when she feels it.

A squeeze on her hand.

It's too visceral for her to imagine it, and the warmth that floods her body is even more so. For a brief, joyous second, it's like he's there again; she sees his smile in her mind's eye, his hair loose from its ponytail and his arms stretched lazily out in sleep. She sees a whole life playing out before her very eyes—Kanan, lifting Caleb up on his shoulders; Kanan, making caf for her and space waffles for their son; Kanan, moving through the seven forms, Caleb next to him like a reflection.

Kanan, curled up next to her, with their baby in the space between.

She knows it's him; that what she's seeing is how he wanted it to be. She feels his fingers slipping out of hers as the images fade away and nearly cries out, but for the first time since his death, there's a chance that these might be happy tears, so she allows herself to let them come.

Quietly, so not to wake the baby, she cries for what they were and everything they could have been. The tears are soft, like tiny kisses on her cheeks, and her chest is shaking but not with fear. Eventually she dries her eyes, and with a deep breath and a glance over at Caleb to make sure that sweet, tiny chest is still rising and falling, lets them shut.

The scenes Kanan showed her shimmer like a mirage across her closed eyelids, soothing her into sleep. Later, she'll swear on her life that she heard his voice, whispering that he loves her too.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So… the first chapter of this fic was scarily accurate… Here's the second one that I didn't think I would get to write!**

* * *

When Hera misses her period, the first time, she doesn't think much of it.

Frankly, she hardly realizes she's missed it—she is running a rebellion after all, and who has time to track these things—until Sabine approaches her, in a very tactful and discrete way, to ask when the next order of sanitary supplies is coming in.

Even then, she doesn't pause for more than a moment—probably stress, or her weight dropping too low again; she makes a point of eating a few extra ration bars, which is helped by the fact that she's been uncharacteristically hungry—and it's not until she misses the second one that she starts to think something might be up.

It's not just her period—there's also a strange sense about her, that innate realization that something isn't _quite_ right, some alignment of tissue or muscle or blood. She's never been one for mirrors, but she looks the same, her clothes fit the same way. Kanan hasn't said anything, and he knows her almost more intimately than she knows herself.

But she feels... _off,_ in a way she's never felt off before, and she's not sure if she's talking herself into it or if her body really does know, but after she misses the second period, she decides that it may be time to tell... or, at least to _alert,_ Kanan.

She doesn't so much muster up the courage to do it as she does find a blessed moment when the ship is empty save the two of them. It's the middle of the day; she hasn't seen him since breakfast; she has pilots to train in 20 minutes; and all of these things added up are making her think that it's probably (definitely) not the best time to broach subjects with the more sensitive nature of oh, you know, bringing a child into war.

But she's already activated the comm, and his footfalls are already approaching from the hall, and the doors are sliding open and her heartbeat is picking up like a fathier accelerating to full gallop and he's sliding into the chair next to her, comfortably, her copilot, like he's done it a thousand times because he _has_ and all of a sudden she's so overwhelmed and terrified she could cry.

"What's up?" he says. He's reclined, relaxed in the chair, but when she doesn't reply, his blind eyes rest on her for a second longer than they normally would (and not in the good way), and he leans forward with a concerned look on his face.

"Hera, what is it?"

Hera's mouth is dry. "I..." She says, and then licks her lips under the foolish belief that if she can just send enough moisture to her tongue, the words will slide right out.

"Um," she says again, because no amount of anything—moisture, bravery, terror—will ever be enough to make her say these words out loud, to thrust them from the figmented, imaginative realm of her mind to the harsh brightness of reality.

"It's..." They stick on her tongue.

He's watching her, his eyebrows a deep furrow, concern in his eyes, and she _hates_ herself in that moment, that she can't get these words off her lips.

 _Now there are two things I don't have the stomach to tell him, s_ he thinks to herself, with the kind of bitter, amorphous regret that burns you up with shame.

But he's waiting, watching, growing more worried by the second, and so she just takes her hands, wringing together nervously, and slows them down and brings them to a quiet resting place in her lap, to the place where her torso meets her legs.

Her hands still. Time slows with them. He looks to her hands and then painstakingly, up to her eyes, and she's frozen in his gaze, too terrified to even blink.

 _"Stars."_

It slips from his lips—a breath, a gasp, a stolen snatch of oxygen, as intangible as the being that might be growing in her womb.

There's a smile forming on his face, growing like a sunrise. He's looking at her with wonder, like she's handed him the galaxy, like she's glowing from the inside out even though the only thing she feels is like she's falling.

"You're..." The word trails from his lips. His stare makes her feel naked.

She purses her lips together so tightly her teeth might break through, in an effort to hold back tears, and manages a tight nod. "Mhm."

He looks like he wants to surge forward and hug her, his arms already moving for the embrace, but then he sees the look in her eyes—fear? Uncertainty? Doubt? She'd love to know; whatever it is, it can't be pretty—and he stops.

Instead, he takes his hands and places them over her own, forming a tiny knot of the two of them right over the one that might be in her belly. He looks into her eyes and the _trust_ there, the love, the absolute prioritization of her needs over his own, nearly kills her.

"What do _you_ want?" he asks.

She stares at him. A thousand thoughts roll through her head, but the one that comes out is this.

"I... it isn't just my decision," she says.

Something cracks in his face, and he surges forward and kisses her so passionately it makes her dizzy.

She's finally realizing exactly how much those words mean to him when they break apart. Even then he's hesitant to let her go; he stays, cradling the sides of her face, his forehead resting against her own.

"Kanan," Hera whispers, swallowing the lump in her throat, "What do we do?"

His eyes flick down toward her belly and then back up, and in that instant, she knows.

He tries to lie to her anyway.

"Well," he says, slowly, hesitantly, testing the waters; she sees his tongue lick his lips, "Ultimately it's your decision—"

"No," she cuts him off; those words are far too cold and removed, for how close they are right now, for how precious this chance is. "What do you want to do?"

The grin spreads over his face like a sunrise, and she hears a low chuckle in the back of his throat.

"I mean, Hera... it's our _child_ ," he says, and there's something radiant in his eyes. "To me, there's no decision involved."

She takes a deep breath and pulls their foreheads apart, because she can't think straight when she's this close to him. Hera leans back in her chair and he stays at the edge of his, in his best _I'm here for you_ posture, and Force knows that doesn't make things any easier. She drags a hand over her face and peeks at him through the crack between her fingers—she can tell how hard he's trying to keep the corners of his lips from turning up but it's clear that he can't, and the decision-that-isn't is settling within her more and more.

Hera lets her hands fall back into her lap and looks at him.

"Okay," she says.

He breaks into a full-blown grin.

"Okay?"

She nods, tightly, and tears spark her eyes. "Okay."

He takes her face in his hands and kisses her, and she calms down enough to kiss him back. When they pull apart he still has that grin on his face, and it just might be reflected on her own.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: When I first wrote this, I didn't intend for it to be more than one chapter. Apparently, I'm just not done grieving for Kanera yet (and, let's be honest, probably never will be).**

* * *

Hera wakes up in a cold sweat with one arm stretched out in front of her. She's reliving it again—she can still feel the vise of the Force gripping her like an icy hand. It seems in every nightmare she makes it one step closer to him before he thrusts her back, before she sees that look in his eyes, the one that means he would die for her and the one that means he's about to.

His eyes clear, the explosion surrounds them, and she wakes up feeling like her skin's been licked with fire. She brings her arm back down to the bed; she's hot and flushed and her hands are shaking. She throws the covers away and sits on the side of the bed, chest heaving, head in hands, trying to catch her breath.

If Kanan were here, he'd sit up and put a hand on her shoulder, and she'd let him, even though she was far too hot. If she could change anything, it would be every time she rejected his touch.

But despite every time, he'd kept doing it anyway. No matter how many times she'd brushed him off, no matter how many times she'd pushed him away, he'd kept coming back for her.

She won't be able to reconcile that with how she acted, with how she kept her feelings locked away until the last possible second. Not ever.

Some days, Hera feels she owes a debt, like she's carrying a ledger with her greatest sin written in it. Not telling him sooner. Thinking there would be more time.

She was a fool—and she should have known she was being a fool—for thinking such a thing in the midst of war as that there would be more time.

On nights like this, the grief feels heavy as a slab of rock on her back.

Zeb tells her they're just nightmares, and that they're a natural part of the grieving process, but Hera Syndulla has never accepted the idea that she might be vulnerable to the same weaknesses as everyone else, and she's not about to start now.

Although, sitting here, her body doubled over with grief and eyes stinging with tears, it's hard to convince herself of that.

And then there's another noise, ringing over the blood rushing in her ears. Her head snaps up and she's so disoriented with grief that it takes her a moment to place the sound.

It's a cry.

A baby's cry.

 _Her_ baby's cry.

She gasps and flies over to the crib, where Jacen is red-faced and screaming on his back, waving his tiny fists like he's fighting an invisible fiend.

Hera can sympathize; but she doesn't waste time telling him that because he's a baby, and humor, especially the sardonic, is lost on him.

So she does what any good mother would do, and wills her hands to stop shaking, and reaches down and scoops him up. She holds him against her chest, tucking his head against her collarbone and away from her face so he can't see that she's silently crying.

"Shh," she whispers, keeping her voice even through the tears. "Shh, love, it's just me."

She rocks him, pacing the room with gentle, swaying steps, and Jacen's cries eventually slow. He lets out a hiccup against her chest.

"It's okay," Hera says, as a tear slips down her cheek. "You're okay. Mama's here," she tells him, and all she can think is _but Daddy's not._

Jacen's tears subside, and he rests quietly against her chest, but the words that can silence a crying child bring no comfort to her.

"Mama's here," she strokes his back, her voice shaking. "It's just me."

To Jacen, "just me" means no monsters, no spooks, no bogeymen hiding in the shadows of the dark.

For Hera, "just me" is her final damnation.

Jacen's breathing is deep and even against her shoulder, and she's struck with an irrational, fierce envy for her child, for the world of this infant, who has no cares other than when he'll be fed and nursed and changed. Whose mind will stay occupied for hours by something as simple as a set of blocks, without ever wandering to something darker.

Hera can't even fly anymore, without her thoughts drifting to Kanan.

She knows that the moment she returns to her own bed she'll be plagued with the nightmare, with visions of her Jedi going up in flames. Anxiety will gnaw at her stomach and keep her lungs in a tight clench and she'll toss and turn until morning, when Jacen will need to be nursed and dressed and fed. The routine is as predictable as the weekly maintenance on the _Ghost._

And Jacen, sweet little Jacen, who's never known grief, never known anger, never known heartbreak, will fall back into a dreamless sleep and stay there until daybreak, when he knows his mother will be there to meet his every need.

There's a beautiful simplicity in that trust, in that utter dependence. In that without her, this little being wouldn't have a chance at survival.

There's also a terror to it, a fear that runs so deep she knows it comes inborn, flowing from every mother that came before her.

"Just me," she strokes his back and tells him once more, even though she's certain he's fallen asleep. But the words aren't for Jacen anymore—they're not an assurance that the bogeymen have gone away, but a promise. A pact.

Because even if it is just her, she'll do it. Day in and day out, whatever that baby needs, whenever he needs it, she'll be there. And she doesn't have Kanan to help her, doesn't have him to lean on, but she has his son.

And maybe, one day, if she can just keep waking up for him, keep refusing to surrender to this grief, keep moving forward and moving on, that'll be enough to keep the nightmares away.


End file.
